Spies triumphs in sprint race of attrition

"I just tried to stay out of all the trouble," Spies says after the race. "Daytona is a place that you can lose a lot of points quick, so it's nice showing up with No. 1 plate, getting the most laps led and getting the race win."

In the race,Yamaha's Eric Bostrom nails the holeshot, gapping the field by several bike lengths as Spies and teammate Mat Mladin lead the chasers. Shake-up No. 1 comes only one turn later, as Jordan Suzuki's Aaron Yates and Kawasaki's Jamie Hacking come together and crash out, sliding across the grass. Yates manages to remount, while Hacking is unharmed but his race is over.

Up front, Mladin passes second-place Spies going into turn one, then chases down Bostrom and passes for the lead in the draft two laps later.

Shakeups No. 2 and 3 come on the start of lap six, as Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden highsides into turn one, and Mladin, riding by himself, tucks the front going into turn six and slides out. Restarting takes some time, and he re-enters the race in 13th place.

Things calm down a bit through mid-race, with Spies pulling a gap of about a second on Duhamel and Bostrom--until Bostrom shoots onto pit road. He points madly to his his front tire while he hands third place to Zemke.

In point, Spies holds his gap over Duhamel at about a second until two laps go go, then widens it to 3 seconds by the finish, winning the first race of the Superbike championship handily.

Perhaps more importantly, Spies emerges from Daytona with a serious points gap on many of his rivals--including Mladin, who crosses the line in 10th.